Here is a list of wines I rated "A" in the past 3 years. some are no longer available or available in a newer vintage which may or may not be as good. A lot of these were recommendations from a wine shop that were high in quality-price-ratio (QPR) I have found that if you drink wines mostly under $20 many times, if you try, you can find an $8 bottle that is nearly as good as a $20 bottle. Most on the list are under $15 and some under $10. There may be some duplicates but i did not sort them out. Average price is about $12. Many are widely available perhaps at your local Giant Eagle if it is a nice one.

I don't drink too many wines in the $30-$50 range so if that is where you are looking this list will not help much. As you can see below most are from California

Generally the list is organized as: the name of the wine, vintage, varietal, appelation. Also, the spelling may be off as I type by the hunt and peck method. Lots of good memories in these wines. Cheers.

$50 a bottle? or gallon? For someone who has spent $72 bucks for 24 Imperial Dortmunder's, why can I not bring myself around to spend more then $15 for a bottle of wine (maybe it is the hangover). I usually go and just ask the dude at the wine store, most know their wine.

I always direct wine drinkers to a winery in Wisconsin. Many years ago it used to be my great-great grandfathers farm/orchard....I remember playing in the barn and cherry orchards when I was quite young....

The farm was eventually given up, and a winery bought it and kept the name of my g/g/grandparents....

You can order online, their red wines are supposed to be quite good, and grabbing awards...The Untouchable Red is one.....

I'm a huge lover of Red Wine and my advice always is..... get as close to the winemaker as possible!

Generally speaking, the quality of "easy-to-buy" wine is pretty crappy. Stuff that you can pick off the Supermarket shelf is generally mass produced and, whislt drinkable, nowhere near the value you should get for your money.

Fortunately here in the UK I'm a member of an online wine site that sources the wines directly from the winemaker without having to go through the middle men that add to the price.

My advice would be to try and find something similar in the US and just keep trying different grapes to see which is your preference..... if you already have a prefered grape (mine is Syrah), then look to try from different countries until you find something that sits well with you (it's South Africa for me).

The one problem with this approach is, when you go "directly" to smaller winemakers there's only a finite amount of a certain vintage (unlike the larger companies that mass-produce), so you will find that a certain wine you like might just run out of stock.

What's nice with that one CDT is you can stick a rag into the opening when you've drunk half of it, light it and then throw it, so that it makes a nice diversion or weapon when trying to evacuate the neighborhood in which you bought it.

Peeker643 wrote:What's nice with that one CDT is you can stick a rag into the opening when you've drunk half of it, light it and then throw it, so that it makes a nice diversion or weapon when trying to evacuate the neighborhood in which you bought it.

dazindiansfanuk wrote:I'm a huge lover of Red Wine and my advice always is..... get as close to the winemaker as possible!

Generally speaking, the quality of "easy-to-buy" wine is pretty crappy. Stuff that you can pick off the Supermarket shelf is generally mass produced and, whislt drinkable, nowhere near the value you should get for your money.

Fortunately here in the UK I'm a member of an online wine site that sources the wines directly from the winemaker without having to go through the middle men that add to the price.

My advice would be to try and find something similar in the US and just keep trying different grapes to see which is your preference..... if you already have a prefered grape (mine is Syrah), then look to try from different countries until you find something that sits well with you (it's South Africa for me).

The one problem with this approach is, when you go "directly" to smaller winemakers there's only a finite amount of a certain vintage (unlike the larger companies that mass-produce), so you will find that a certain wine you like might just run out of stock.

Oh well, it gives me an excuse to try even more.

DAZ,

Not sure if you ever lived in the US but good supemarkets in the US have wine departments that are on par with a good wine shop. Also, we have a lot of laws regarding exporting and importing wines from and to different states so buying direct from the winery may not work. Things are opening up and we may soon have little to no restrictions. Not sure we can ever buy direct from an winery outside of the US. I think we have to go through a distributor. Hell from the UK you are a short trip away from France and other wine "Meccas" - must be cool. Another problem we are having recently in the US is the strength of the Euro. Over the past few years a $15 dollar wine (9 Euros) has gone up to $23 (15 Euros) That is also part of the reason I have been drinking more US wines (Mostly California).

Let me know if you ever go over for tastings at wineries in France etc. I would love to hear about it.